U.K. Fossil Tour Guide Discovers Rare Dinosaur Track Imprinted in Clay on the Isle of Wight

Mar. 15, 2025

@southcoastfossils/Instagram; Getty

A fossil tour guide taking a morning walk on the Isle of Wright found himself in “the footsteps” of dinosaurs.

While walking along the English island’s Wessex Formation coast on Wednesday, Feb. 12, Joe Thompson stumbled upon a rare, purple dinosaur print imprinted in clay, according to anInstagram postfrom the fossil tour company Wight Coast Fossils.

“Our guide Joe was out in the footsteps of early Cretaceous giants this morning on the island’s Wessex Formation coast, encountering this huge purple ornithopod dinosaur track in the ancient floodplain clays,” the company wrote in the post’s caption, alongside a photo of the large purple footprint.

@southcoastfossils/Instagram

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According to London’sNatural History Museum, the Iguanodon was a herbivorous dinosaur that averaged about 32 feet in length and roamed in the Early Cretaceous period (110 million to 140 million years ago), primarily in Belgium and the United Kingdom. It could walk on all fours or two legs and had a large thumb spike on the end of its hand, likely to fend off predators.

An illustration of an Iguanodon.Getty

Getty

“They are amazing but ephemeral glimpses of an early Cretaceous world and its inhabitants, now lost to time,” it added.

Thompson’s find on the Isle Wight comes weeks after scientists discovered the U.K.s largest-ever dinosaur footprint site. An employee of an Oxfordshire quarry found the tracks while clearing clay, according toBBC.

“I was basically clearing the clay, and I hit a hump, and I thought it’s just an abnormality in the ground. But then it got to another, 3 [meters] along, and it was a hump again. And then it went another 3 [meter] hump again,” Johnson told the outlet in January, before recalling his reaction to the incredible find.

“I thought, ‘I’m the first person to see them.’ And it was so surreal — a bit of a tingling moment, really,” he said.

“This is one of the most impressive track sites I’ve ever seen, in terms of scale, in terms of the size of the tracks,” micropalaeontologist Kirsty Edgar, a professor at the University of Birmingham, told BBC. “You can step back in time and get an idea of what it would have been like, these massive creatures just roaming around.”

source: people.com